Chapter 47

Time: Saturday, February 9, 2019 10:35 AM

Ricardo came silently into Black Mall library to check up on Diego’s progress. As ordered, the man was busy working at one of the two interface consoles at the room’s two beveled corners. Today Diego had chosen the side facing the sand park with the windows facing southeast, and a great deal of orange sunlight was flooding his work area now. Not that Diego seemed to mind. Instead he called out a simple greeting, “Hello, boss.”

Ricardo grinned and walked over. “You remind me of Toro with Chico.” Ricardo studied the complex monitor screen for a moment. “You know, Diego, you’re the only one I allow to be informal with me, and the reason is you’re the only one who notices when I walk into a room.” Ricardo looked around Diego’s work area and saw the small mirrored sphere the compadre had suspended nearby. “Very good, Diego, simple and effective.” Ricardo pulled up a chair. “So tell me, what did you learn today?”

Diego sighed and stretched. “To be honest, not a heck of a lot. We might be at the end of the line with milking information out of this console.”

Ricardo gave a deep frown of disapproval and took a moment to crack his knuckles. “I’d be very sorry to hear that.”

“I’m doing my best, boss.” Diego said defensively, and then he waved his hand over the keyboard. “But I think I’ve explored every folder available. My only option left is to go over territory I’ve already covered and see if I’ve missed anything. That’s what I plan to do now.”

Diego typed a few strokes. “Here’s what we know about Section Five. Jessica, Alfonso, Jenaro, Hernando, you and I are known by this system as Citizen ID Tags 24, 26, 27, 49, 50, and 53.”

Ricardo waved his hand dismissively. They had discovered this days ago by having their members sit and type a “Who am I?” question to the console. “Any ideas on how we might learn the IDs of the others?”

Diego shrugged. “Nothing comes to mind. I think Alfonso’s guess though is a good one. Our numbers are consistent with the order in which we entered the elevator at the start of the parties. I’ve got approximate ranges right here,” he said, popping up a simple spreadsheet, “in case we ever need to guess. ID Tags 1 through 18 belong to It’s My Party, assuming our guess of lining up the Parties with the Sections is correct. And then we came over. We just don’t know which groups went next to which Parties.”

Diego added as an afterthought, “I don’t know how knowing the other ID Tags would help anyway.” He typed for another second. “And here’s the employment section. As you can see, there are only six jobs that are active now, and three of the six slots are filled, the janitors for Sections One, Four, and Five, by Citizen ID Tags 148, 117, and 142.”

Ricardo sighed. “And it’s impossible to get their names?”

Diego sighed back. “I’ve tried everything. I keep being told I’m not authorized to get that information.”

“And how would you get such authorization?”

Diego gave a humorous laugh. “I’m not authorized to know that either. I’ve even tried it one more level. I’m not authorized to know why I’m not authorized to know why I’m not authorized to know. You get the idea? It’s a dead end.”

Ricardo sighed. “All right. What else have you found?”

“Almost nothing. There does seem to be six equal Sections and a Section-Zero that’s above everything. But since I’m not a potential candidate for any available job, the system is telling me zilch.”

“So somehow it knows it’s you who’s typing and not someone else.”

“Yeah, evidently. Interesting how the three filled janitor positions have such high Citizen ID Tags.”

“Those four women who came late to our party...”

“Yes, Toshi, Ann, Kiyoko, and ... uh, what was the last name?”

“Akiko.”

“Right, Akiko. And Kiyoko was with Brandi when they attacked us. A coincidence, boss?”

Ricardo just flashed Diego a quick grin as a reply, and then turned thoughtful. “What do you think Diego, seventy kilometers of mall?” In the past week, their away teams had traveled as far as thirty kilometers into the spiral, and had made estimates based on the changing curvature as to its ultimate length.

“Yeah, at least, somewhere between seventy to eighty I think.”

“So with six parties, six Sections, we each own about seventy kilometers of mall?”

Diego shrugged. “I guess. And it seems one or more parties has found a source of locks make of other-stuff and buttoned things up tight. They’ve even locked almost all the mall that belongs to us.”

Diego gestured to the census counter at the nearby elevator. “At least one man from Chico’s expedition is still alive, more if other males have died. I bet Brandi knows who.” He sighed and added, “I bet she knows who killed Alfredo too, a hell of a marksman.”

Ricardo frowned as he remembered his surprise when he examined Alfredo’s body. It was the evening after Uno’s death. Accepting Hernando’s and Jenaro’s story at face value, and the blood stains in the walkway backed them up, the precision of the shooting was phenomenal.

There were three quick shots within a two centimeter radius directly on target with Alfredo’s heart. And this from a distance of fifty meters with a Bersa pistol? One shot sure, two maybe with the wildest of luck, but three pushed the issue to a conclusion Ricardo hated. They were up against a world-class sharpshooter. And that implied it wasn’t Brandi or Kiyoko who had done the firing.

And that implied all sorts of things, and none of them pleasant. Did Brandi’s and Kiyoko’s arrival in the lounge have anything to do with the earlier disappearance of Frida? Were Brandi and Kiyoko a rescue mission? Ricardo saw it as a very dark possibility. It implied that the different groups might have long-distance communications with each other in order to synchronize such a rescue attempt, and that was just one more huge disadvantage they were up against.

Ricardo had found a very effective way to control his new subjects. He organized Jenaro and Jessica into Team-A and Alfonso and Hernando into Team-B, and for the last week at least one team and often both would be locked down in the mall on a combination of guard, procurement, and exploration duties. Ricardo would secure the stairwell door to Jacob’s with thick titanium bars, and there was nothing in their home complex that could dent the locks. If either Team were successful in killing Ricardo while the other Team was locked in the Mall, the two groups would be forever separated, both from each other and from each other’s resources.

The simple idea had worked very well. Over the past week, Ricardo thought he had played upon the fears of his team and had turned most of their terror into blind obedience. Jessica had even hinted she would sleep with Ricardo if he wanted her. So far the new leader had been neutral in his response, undecided which would be the most advantageous way to respond.

His mind came back to the present. “Damn it, Diego! I need more options. What are the Section-Zero jobs like?”

“I don’t know how you get to them, but yeah, it’s a bunch of interesting titles, almost always starting with the word director. There’s a Director of Energy, a Director of Security, Director of Health, Director of Safety, Director of Waste, Director of Advancement, there’s even a Director of Astronomy.”

Ricardo closed his eyes and considered. “All but the last one sound like they might have some useful power.” He paused for a moment. “What does the Director of Advancement do?”

“Absolutely no idea. There’s nothing here describing the jobs, nothing I can access anyway. Want me to show you how limited this is?”

Ricardo ignored the offer. “Diego, you have to find me an application form.”

Diego was quiet for a moment and then sighed heavily. “This is the same problem Uno had.”

Ricardo blinked. “Uno knew about this interface?!”

“No, I donn’t mean that. I was thinking about the issue of exploration. Uno wanted to be more aggressive, he really did. But how? We’ve tried the walkways north of here and lost a lot of people. We’ve tried the shopping mall below and lost a lot of people. There’s only one option left, and I can see your reluctance to explore it. The same feeling stopped Uno. But if you want an application form, that’s where to search for one...” Diego glanced at Ricardo and looked embarrassed.

Ricardo saw the point immediately. If he sent someone out to explore the buildings across the fields, they’d either find nothing and the exercise would be a failure, or perhaps they would find some great power that could be used against him. And if Ricardo went out himself, what would prevent the others from simply locking him out of the home complex? Ricardo realized what he needed was some sort of doomsday device, something that would make it absolutely essential for the people to let him back when he returned.